by me, who stand a candidate for this honour, but am hitherto a volunteer in your service. I am sorry to tell you, sir, but Heaven forbid that I should conceal so material a circumstance from your knowledge, we do not succeed. We raise a spirit, but this spirit turns against you. There are more people than ever against the pretender; and zeal for supporting the present establishment never ran higher. But this zeal is not any longer without knowledge: it is directed to it's proper object, and there is no possibility of leading it hoodwinked to serve any other purposes. Some incredulous wretches there are, who smile when we talk to them of invasions and the pretender, and who content themselves to reply, that the machine is very seasonably introduced, and according to the rules of art. The greater number take fire, and lay this new distress, which we threaten them with, at your door ; for, they say, that we disobliged Spain some years ago, to tie the emperor the more firmly to us, and that we have since that time disobliged the emperor, by affecting a closer correspondence, and greater union of councils with France, than ever was known between the two nations. They send us to that excellent treatise, "The Barrier Treaty vindicated," to learn our true and lasting interest in foreign alliances, and there they pretend that we shall find the condemnation of all your measures they lament the miserable scene, which they apprehend may soon be opened, his majesty's foreign

foreign dominions exposed to all the calamities of war, and perhaps in danger of being lost; we ourselves struggling against domestic enemies, and defending our coasts against invasions: these mischiefs brought upon us by a conjunction of the emperor, our old ally, with the king of Spain his rival; a conjunction so unnatural, that nothing but the highest resentment at our behaviour to them both could have brought it about: in short, to finish up the picture, Great Britain reduced in this distress to lean solely upon France, and the faith of that court to become our chief security.

Upon the whole matter, your enemies, sir, the substance of whose private conversation I have now honestly reported to you, you, conclude very insolently that you have filled up the measure of your iniquity and your folly, and that you must sink, or the nation must sink under the weight of that calamity which you have brought and suffered to be brought upon her.

As shocking as this account must be to your ears, I promise myself that the sincerity and plainness with which I have given it, will be agreeable to you; and that you will receive into your bosom a man whose affection for your person and zeal for your service must be above all suspicion, after giving you intelligence of so high a nature, without any stipulation for the discovery.

I expect

I expect to hear from you in eight days from the date hereof; if I do not, you shall hear again from him, who is,

Most noble Sir,

Your honour's

most devoted servant,

THE OCCASIONAL WRITER.

From my Garret,

Jan. 1726-7.

193

THE

OCCASIONAL WRITER.

NUMBER II.

To the Same.

I

Most Noble Sir,

THINK myself obliged in honour to let the world know, that you have treated all my proposals to write in your service with a contempt unusual from one in your station; for I have seen the times, when every little paltry prostitute of his pen found countenance and encouragement These wretches are sure of both, whenever there are any bad measures to be justified, or any bold strokes to be given; and the croaking of these ravens has always, in my imagination, boded some mischief or other to the commonwealth.

For this reason I took upon me the character of a most infamous libeller, in my first address to you, that I might be able to make a surer judgment of our present condition, and know better what expectations to entertain; so that I own I am most agreeably disappointed in not receiving any letter or message from you. I own, that, instead of biting you, I am fairly bit myself.

Some

Some malicious refiners may pretend, perhaps, that an address of such a nature, made in so publick a manner, could meet with no other treatment, even from a minister who was willing to accept the proposal. Malice, I say, may refine thus, and endeavour to depreciate a virtuous action, which cannot be denied, by supposing such motives to it as cannot be proved. The practice is too common, and especially where men are divided into parties, where public disputes create and nourish private animosities, and where perpetual feuds irritate the natural malignity of the heart. But far be it from me to judge with so little charity; I am willing to believe, sir, that you declined the offers made you, not on account of the publick address, by which they were conveyed, but because you disdained to support a virtuous administration by a venal pen.

When I meet a man with loaded pistols in his pocket, or a dagger under his cloak, I suspect that he is going upon no very honourable designs. Housebreakers and coiners have been detected, by having their tools found about them. Informers, spies, and hireling scribblers are the tools of an evil statesman; and when I see all such discouraged, and none of them about a minister, I think myself obliged to suppose, that his designs are honourable, and his measures directed to the publick good.

I take this opportunity therefore of begging your pardon for the trial I presumed to make. The liberty indeed was great; but since it has

turned